Yet Another Phone/PDA.

wow. this one has some serious promise. the MDA IV. (it's one of those designs that gets sold off to several different 'brands' to pretend is their own...)

it fits all the criteria that i layed out here. plus it has a feature i only hoped for... and never really expected. landscape orientation. i don't know why exactly... but it is seriously hard to find a PDA that has the form factor of a teeny tiny laptop. apparently everyone was put off by the idea back in the Jornada/Cassiopeia days? or what? it really is the best form factor in my opinion. portrait seems like a waste of space to me most of the time.

in addition to all the goodness that i want and the mini-laptop form factor... it appears to have 2 cameras... and can operate with the screen flipped around like a normal portrait PDA. and i dig the use of a freaking normal USB connector. even if i would most likely sync via WiFi or Bluetooth... i much prefer the mini-USB vs. some funky $45 proprietary cable. i assume it charges over USB? and if it is USB... can it operate as a USB Mass Storage device? does Windows Mobile even support that?

with the HP hw6500 looking to cost around $900... just like the BenQ P50... it is appearing to price itself out of my market. hopefully this one will be a bit cheaper? probably not though... as the MDA III (and re-brands) went for around $900... so it's not looking good. too bad.

Pics of the MDA IV

More (better) Pics of the MDA IV

MDA III and it's $900-ness (gee... 46 in stock? maybe because you are charging a billion dollars for it!)

z.